hi all!
I do not mean to offend anyone with this... but after reaching page 8 of this thread i am glad to see that the 'make-it-like-windows' posts have died out
i think we do not need to copy windows... we can and have done much better. People migrating from windows should understand that Mint is not an imitation of windows and should be willing to accept the difference... as Mint and Linux are clearly better!
merlwiz79, i absolutely love the boot screen you made! i do have one suggestion though. there is quite a bit of empty space below the Linux Mint logo. If it is possible could you either move the logo to the top and the boot menu to the middle of the screen... or move the logo just above the boot options and boot menu closer to the middle of the screen. i think it would look better... just a suggestion...
again, credit to merlwiz79 for his work on the XFCE edition! I wish Mint with GNOME could be as light and fast... as apparently XFCE nowadays is not much lighter or less resource hungry than GNOME. I think clem has made a good decision to question the need for Beagle and removing it should make Mint lighter. I have not used Cassandra GNOME so I don't know what services are run by default but I say let us keep the default running services at a reasonable level to allow for a functional but still snappy experience. Finding a balance is the key. I recommend you try out Mint XFCE to see what a difference a light and fast distro makes to the user experience.
I have another suggestion which may be harder to implement.
Mint recommends a clean install rather than an upgrade. So, instead of going with Ubuntu's put-everything-on-one-partition method, why don't we have Mint partition the hard disk by default to create a separate /home partition. And on performing an installation, the installer would look for an existing Mint installation, detect the current /home partition, use that by default, format the previous /root partition and install itself there. If no previous Mint installation is detected it would use the entire disk, and create the /root and /home partitions. The default size of the /root partition could be around 6GB to leave ample space for applications (depending on the size of the hard disk). Maybe a "Mint upgrade" and "Mint new installation" option in Ubiquity's partitioning tool?
Of course this can be done currently by going manual but from my experience, the hardest part new users come across during an Ubuntu/Mint installation is partitioning. And it is more complicated explaining to a new-comer how to create partitions and what to do when installing a newer version of Mint. If this could be reduced to an option in Ubiquity, that would be awesome!
As for making the transition from one version to another, I have another suggestion
i hope you guys are not bored yet with my rant
My idea is having a script or a cron job that would periodically backup key configuration files to a hidden Mint-configuration-backup folder in the /home partition. Stuff I would include here would be xorg.conf, all network settings, list of installed applications, apt sources list. Then, when a newer version of Mint is installed it would restore the configurations from this backup... since they are in /home and are thus preserved through the upgrade! Also it can be used as a restore function in case the user messes things up. Maybe an option could be included to allow more savvy users to add other config files to be backed up? I feel such a feature would add to the out-of-the-box bliss of Mint
In the case of xorg.conf, things might be harder because of all the variables involved... but its a start i guess...
ok I think thats enough from me... and I hope I've explained my ideas clearly...
